Starless's story

Starless was born around the same time as Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Not much else is known about his foalhood except he was friends with Coloratura before she became a famous pop star.

Starless and Coloratura both attended the same schools. While Coloratura was popular among her classmates, Starless was mostly disliked by his classmates as he was horrible to almost everyone. Despite this, Coloratura still liked Starless, seeing some good inside him, and Starless considered her a friend, although it took a while for him to admit it and he was still mean to her a lot. The two would often hang out together and as time passed, Starless became a better but still hostile pony as Coloratura’s influence had softened him, and the other ponies began to tolerate him.

Starless had a crush on Coloratura but wouldn’t admit it for three reasons: he believed he didn’t deserve to be with her, he was afraid she’d reject him, and he was paranoid that she would sell herself out and become famous, and Starless did not want to be a celebrity. He and Coloratura both aspired to become musicians one day, and Starless wanted to create and perform music he liked as opposed to selling out like Coloratura would eventually do. Coloratura was an amazing singer and pianist with a beautiful voice, Starless could play multiple instruments, and both were good songwriters with Starless even getting a cutie mark in songwriting.

The last two years before Coloratura went away to Manehattan were Starless’s best years of his life. It was the last time he had Coloratura and hope for the future. He and Coloratura formed a band with Octavia Melody, Vinyl Scratch, and Neon Lights. They were all great friends and Starless felt great. Things went well for him until he did something he would never forgive himself for.

The day before Coloratura moved away, Starless began having nightmares and panic attacks, having realized that he hasn’t changed at all and that he’s still the awful colt he was. When Starless, Coloratura, and their friends discussed their future plans, Starless called Coloratura a “sellout” for wanting to make it big, knowing that the record labels in Manehattan will force artists into changing everything about themselves for the money. Coloratura took this as an insult and the two began arguing. Starless, already worked up from his panic attacks, remembering that he’s been awful towards her, and realizing he may never see Coloratura again, decides to assault Coloratura and nearly kills her before stopping himself and leaving.

Unbeknownst to Starless, Coloratura had developed a crush on him and was heartbroken after what he did to her. Starless was also heartbroken and became increasingly isolated from society. The band Starless and Coloratura were apart of broke up and they, Octavia, Vinyl, and Neon Lights all went their separate ways. He abandoned his dreams of becoming a musician, gave up his special talent, and began attacking and hurting himself, unable to move on from Coloratura or forgive himself for what he did to her. He became increasingly depressed and nihilistic, believing that he is completely beyond help and lives completely isolated from ponies somewhere in the Everfree Forest. He spent the next year completely alone until one day, while traveling, he came across a village.

The village turns out to be Starlight’s village. He tries to run off unnoticed but before he can leave, Starlight Glimmer, confronts him and invites him to join her village. Starless refused at first, wanting to remain alone, but reluctantly accepts when he realizes that there is no magic in the village, as he hated magic and wanted it gone. He doesn’t care that he had to give up his cutie mark, as he had already abandoned his special talent. Starless stayed with Starlight until a separate cottage was built for him.

Starless had spent the past year becoming increasingly insane and beating himself up almost every day. He now wears a cloak to cover up his self-inflicted wounds. At one point, a trio of unicorns attacked him and robbed him of his bits and his cloak. He never got any of that back and had to steal another cloak from somepony. When Starlight Glimmer sees his wounds that he had been covering up, she becomes concerned about him and the two have a heart-to-heart talk, venting out some of their frustrations to each other. Starless is glad he finally found another friend and chooses to stay with her.

Starless lived in Starlight’s village for a couple years and eventually became her second-in-command. He was the first to discover that Starlight’s equal cutie mark was a fake. Not wanting to lose another friend, he decides to cover up her fake cutie mark and help keep her secret. Starless suggested that she could transfer her magic to the staff of sameness she found in the desert, but she didn’t know of a spell that could do that, and they both wanted to find a magic transferring spell if such spell existed. Overtime, Starless and Starlight would become very close to each other, developing a brother and sister-like relationship. They were true friends, each filling in a void caused by abandoning or being abandoned by an old friend they loved.

During this time, he found out that Coloratura had signed a deal with Svengallop and took on the name “Countess Coloratura”. Starless was disappointed but not surprised, and begun to forget about Coloratura, as the pony he remembered was now just a burning memory.

After Twilight and her friends defeated Lord Tirek, Starless embarks on a long journey across Equestria to find information about magic spells in order to find a spell that can transfer magic so that Starlight Glimmer can give up her own cutie mark so that nopony will ever know about her secret. He assures Starlight that he’ll return, hopefully with the spell they’re looking for, and the two share a hug before Starless leaves the village to set off to the Everfree Forest.

Starless made it to the Castle of the Two Sisters, located in the Everfree Forest. He decided to come here first as he believed it was the easiest place to find information about magic since the Canterlot Archives were heavily guarded by Celestia’s royal guards, and he didn’t have any magic to overpower them. When he arrived to the castle to look for books, he found another earth pony.

The earth pony’s name was Black Night. He was a black stallion slightly taller than Starless with a slicked back, gray mane and dark crimson eyes. Like Starless, he wears a black cloak. He had came here to find magic as well, magic that an earth pony could use, as he wanted to overthrow Celestia and Twilight Sparkle. He believed that Celestia had been setting up villains like Nightmare Moon and Discord for Twilight to defeat, that they were staging conflicts to make Twilight look like a hero for their own selfish gain, and Celestia’s actions have been dangerous to Equestria. Black Night once had a special somepony he loved. They had recently gotten married when Discord returned and began causing chaos. Black Night’s wife, Limelight, died during Discord’s short reign of chaos, and when Discord was defeated, she wasn’t revived. When Celestia decided to release Discord again and she and Twilight forgave him after teaming up with Lord Tirek, Black Night was convinced that Twilight Sparkle has to die.

Starless didn’t believe him at first until Black Night asked him why these villains had disappeared for a thousand years and only returned when Twilight began her friendship lessons, and who controls the stars that aided in Nightmare Moon’s escape. Starless remembered being robbed by a unicorn trio and agreed to help Black Night find magic. While they searched the abandoned castle, Black Night noticed Starless’s equal sign cutie mark and Starless told him about his village without magic or cutie marks led by Starlight Glimmer. Black Night wasn’t sure about this, believing that Starlight may want all the magic for herself, but Starless was fully aware of Starlight having a real cutie mark and told him he was looking for a spell to transfer magic from a pony to an object to cover that up.

Starless and Black Night spent the next week looking for magic spells in the castle but could not find anything. They decide to raid the Canterlot archives to find something, but as soon as they leave the castle to head there, Starless’s cutie mark returns to him. Something had happened at Starlight’s village.

Starless and Black Night rush over to Starlight’s village, but by the time they arrived, Twilight Sparkle and her friends had already defeated Starlight, who ran away. Starless was infuriated by this, having lost the only true friend he had left (he didn’t consider Black Night a true friend just yet), and he left the village, wanting Twilight Sparkle dead for ruining what Starlight built and taking her away from him. He and Black Night returned to the Everfree Forest, both vowing to destroy Twilight Sparkle for the misdeeds done to them both.

Over the next few years, Starless and Black Night convince several other earth ponies to join them. They each make a trip to Tartarus where they recite a magical chant and are tested by the power of darkness. Most pass the test and are given dark magical powers, but one pony failed the test and was destroyed. All of them now had dark magic they could perform with their hooves. None were as powerful as Twilight, but if they fought together, they could defeat her. Black Night and his gang spend years planning an attack on Equestria and witness the battle against Queen Chrysalis, Lord Tirek, and Cozy Glow, who they all rooted for as they had defeated Discord and were the first villains who posed an actual threat to Twilight and her friends.

One year after Twilight Sparkle became the ruler of Equestria, Black Night and Starless’s plan to overthrow her begins.

Twilight Sparkle and her friends got together for their meeting once a moon to discuss her first year as ruler of Equestria. Unbeknownst to any of them, Black Night and his gang were eavesdropping on their meeting using some dark magic spell to record everything they say, and through this, they find out the location of Grogar’s bell. The bell is kept locked up in a secret vault in an undisclosed location somewhere in Canterlot. Only Twilight Sparkle knows the location and has access to the vault. The bell contains all of Emperor Grogar’s magic as well as Chrysalis and Tirek’s magic which was absorbed back into the bell when they along with Cozy Glow were defeated. The bell also contains most of Discord’s magic which Twilight took from him as part of his punishment for his actions, along with him being in Fluttershy’s custody for some time. It wasn’t going to be easy for Black Night, Starless, and his gang to retrieve the bell.

Black Night and his gang broke into Tartarus to release several of the most dangerous creatures and had them attack Ponyville, and as they predicted, Twilight Sparkle left Canterlot to help her friends defeat the creatures attacking Ponyville. During this, Black Night and some of his gang members infiltrated the Canterlot castle and the Canterlot library looking for, and successfully broke into the secret vault and retrieved the bell. Starless went with a few gang members to the Canterlot gardens to steal the statue of Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow. By the time Twilight Sparkle and her friends defeated the creatures and she returned to Canterlot, the gang was gone.

Twilight quickly discovered that both the bell and the statue were missing and begun panicking, fearing that Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow somehow returned. Meanwhile, Black Night and his gang destroy the statue of the three villains to prevent them from returning and calls them pathetic for failing what they are about to succeed in. Black Night and his gang discuss their plan to take over Equestria, suggesting they resurrect Emperor Grogar and use him as a pawn to make themselves look like heroes, just as Twilight Sparkle and her friends did. Starless is against this and questions why they would even risk something like this when they could just use the power of the bell to systematically take down every creature with powerful magic. Some of the gang members argue that if they did that, nobody would listen to them as they’d be seen as the villains.

Resurrecting Grogar would be a very difficult task as performing a resurrection spell would require the combined powers of the gang’s dark magic and Grogar’s bell, and a soul sacrifice must be made to complete the resurrection. Since Grogar was a very powerful ancient soul, they must sacrifice dozens of ponies to bring him back. Black Night saw this as an opportunity to eliminate every pony they saw as a threat so nopony could stop them once they do begin the resurrection.

They needed a way to sacrifice ponies, and one gang member discovered a spell that could extract a creature’s soul and incinerate it’s body, but this required a curse to be placed onto the pony. They realized they could place the curse onto a tattoo or mark and the curse would be given to any ponies who take the tattoo or mark. Starless makes the mistake of bringing up a Countess Coloratura concert in Ponyville he’s attending, and Black Night gets the idea of infiltrating the concert and cursing Coloratura’s hoofsie stamps, knowing that many of ponies will take the stamps, and the curse will remain even after the stamp washes off, so they don’t have to act quickly. Starless is against this, not wanting to sabotage his former friend’s concert, but Black Night tells him he needs to get over Coloratura and threatens to have him locked up if he tries to intervene, not wanting to sacrifice a fellow gang member but also not wanting his plan to fail. Starless, thinking Coloratura still hates him for what he’s done to her and realizing she may not remember him, decides she isn’t worth it and agrees to help his friends sabotage her concert, not wanting to lose the only friends he has left.

And so, Black Night and his gang sneaked backstage the day of the concert, and placed the curse on Coloratura’s hoofsie stamps. Starless attended the concert but did not warn Coloratura about the gang. That night, as they expected, Coloratura gave out hoofsie stamps to over a hundred ponies, including herself, not knowing they were cursed, and every pony who received a hoofsie was now cursed and would be sacrificed to resurrect Emperor Grogar. They were ready to begin the resurrection.

Starless has completely given up on life, knowing Coloratura is about to die, or even if she lives, her reputation will be destroyed as she’ll be framed for the mass murder committed by the cult. He could have prevented this but he did nothing. Part of him wishes he could go back and save Coloratura, or at least warn her of the upcoming danger, but he hasn’t seen her since before Nightmare Moon was released, and he wasn’t sure Coloratura would even remember him let alone forgive him after what he did when Coloratura left to go to Manehattan. He decides that Coloratura doesn’t matter to him anymore, that nothing matters to him, and that life isn’t worth living anymore.

Starless takes a walk in the Everfree Forest before returning to his house, a small shack in the forest not far away from the Castle of the Two Sisters. He stabs himself in both of his front hooves a few times, writes a suicide note, and prepares to hang himself before he suddenly gets a visit from Princess Luna. Luna sees a lot of Starless in herself and believes there is still time to stop Black Night and his gang, but Starless doesn’t care anymore and believes he’s beyond help, or rather that’s what he tells himself. Luna takes Starless to the Castle of Friendship, where he’s confronted by his old friend, Starlight Glimmer. It’s been many moons since they last saw each other after Twilight took away Starlight’s village from her. Starless is still upset that Starlight left him when he needed her, but he doesn’t take it personally since her leaving was more Twilight’s fault and thought Starlight’s village wasn’t any good to begin with. The two have a heart-to-heart talk but Starless still believes there is no hope for him or Coloratura. He’s not sure whether to think that Starlight Glimmer’s been brainwashed by Twilight Sparkle while he saw the light, or whether this whole time he’s surrounded himself with the wrong friends and Black Night has deceived him to turn against Twilight. Remembering that Black Night threatened to lock him up if he tried to stop them from sabotaging Coloratura’s hoofsies, Starless begins realizing that he and his gang don’t care about him and regrets joining them, but he also believes it’s too late to turn back, that he’s too far beyond help.

Luna then takes Starless to Coloratura’s mansion in Manehattan. Coloratura doesn’t recognize Starless at first but soon remembers him once he reveals his cutie mark and refreshes her on their past together. Starless and Coloratura find out they both had crushes on each other when they were younger, and Coloratura forgives him for assaulting her all those moons ago, until Starless reveals something else: those hoofsie stamps she gave out in Ponyville were cursed, and everypony who took one is going to die. Unfortunately for them, once a curse is placed, it cannot be removed except by whoever placed the curse, and since Coloratura gave herself a hoofsie, she’s going to die once Black Night begins his resurrection spell. Starless rushes to Twilight’s castle to alert Twilight Sparkle about the danger, revealing everything in a private location outside her castle so Black Night and his gang couldn’t eavesdrop on them, including the recent monster attacks, the missing statue of Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow, and the return of Grogar. They both frantically search for a book about the dark magic they used and a way to stop it, but to no avail. Twilight calls her friends for an emergency and finds out that Applejack and Pinkie Pie both got a hoofsie from Coloratura and were going to die too.

Starless, knowing that Black Night and his gang will soon begin their spell thus destroying Coloratura and hundreds of other ponies, and that there’s no way to stop this, decides to begin his own plan, giving up any good inside him he may have had left and putting an end to both Twilight’s friends and Black Night’s gang. He breaks into Zecora’s hut to steal the Alicorn Amulet, believing it will make him powerful enough to take down Black Night and his gang while also corrupting him beyond help, and then returns to Coloratura’s mansion to see Coloratura in her final moments. She isn’t too happy to see him knowing that he’s part of the reason she’s about to become a victim of Black Night’s spell, but also knowing he and Twilight tried to save her and everypony else who took her hoofsies, allows Starless to stay with her.

Starless and Coloratura were together when all of a sudden, Coloratura’s cheek began to glow, and all of a sudden, her body began to disintegrate. Several ponies outside also begun to disintegrate as their souls left their body and were collected by Grogar’s bell. Applejack and Pinkie Pie also began to disintegrate, but somehow, the magic of friendship kept them both alive. Starless tried to save Coloratura but his dark magic couldn’t save her and she was gone. He puts on the Alicorn Amulet he stole earlier, becoming fully evil and transforming into an artificial unicorn while increasing his strength and speed. He begins his return to Black Night and his gang with the goal of destroying them and Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle and her friends are safe by the magic of friendship and see several souls in the air and a powerful magical energy coming from the Everfree forest, realizing that’s the location of Black Night and his gang, and they head there. The bell cannot drain magic while the resurrection is taking place, but regardless, when Twilight and her friends arrive, Black Night and his gang fight them and prove to be more than a match for them. After a long battle, Twilight Sparkle and her friends are knocked out and the spell is almost complete. Grogar was about to return.

Suddenly, Starless returns and attacks the gang, who is worn out after their struggle with Twilight. Twilight, barely conscious, realizes that regardless of who wins, Equestria is doomed. Starless ultimately wins the fight and kills Black Night knocking out the rest of the gang. The spell is almost complete and Starless is about to stop it until Twilight points out that he may be able to revive Coloratura and everypony else who was killed in the sacrifice. Starless had become apathetic towards everything at this point but also realized he was throwing away his one chance to be reunited with Coloratura, not like she liked him anyways. He tries to take off the amulet but is unable too as he had become too corrupted by the amulet, which nearly takes full control over him, but Twilight and her friends, who have woken up, help Starless overcome the amulet’s influence. Starless then realizes he can sacrifice the amulet as well as his own magic and undo Grogar’s resurrection to bring back everyone Black Night and his gang killed, including Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow, who are all turned back to stone when all of this is over.

Coloratura is revived, but her reputation has been destroyed with her being falsely accused of killing her own fans. While she does forgive Starless, she also rejects him. All of the surviving gang members except Starless are arrested and sent to various prisons. Black Night remains dead. Twilight Sparkle offers Starless her friendship and Starlight Glimmer offers to let him live with her at the Castle of Friendship and to teach him about friendship, and Starless reluctantly accepts. He moves in to live with her, Sunburst, Trixie, and Sunset Shimmer (who moved back to Equestria permanently not long after Twilight’s coronation).

Starless is doing better although he still beats himself constantly for everything he’s done but gets by with his new (and old) friends. He tries to move on from Coloratura and begins dating Sunset Shimmer, who has somewhat of a crush on him, for a while. He still visits Coloratura often and their relationship begins to rekindle as Starless slowly lets go of the past and Coloratura’s reputation is restored and she once again becomes one of the biggest artists in Equestria.

One year later, Starless and Coloratura get married and now have a healthy relationship. Starless and Sunset Shimmer break up but remain close friends.

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Starlight Pianissimo was a pony who loved music and aspired to be a musician. She didn’t care about fame and just wanted to create music she loved without the interference of record companies and corrupt managers like Svengallop. For over a decade, she learned to play a few instruments, including piano (her main instrument), guitar, bass, and drums, practicing for hours almost every day. While not exceptionally skilled at guitar, she was a phenomenal pianist and songwriter, earning her cutie mark in the latter. Her favorite genre of music is progressive rock and most of her solo albums are progressive rock albums.

Starlight began her musical career around the same time as Coloratura while also working at a record store to earn a living. She struggled to make it for a couple years until she attended the Helping Hooves Music Festival when Coloratura, simply known as “Rara”, performed “The Magic Inside”, inspiring her to continue. Starlight manages to get in touch with Coloratura and the two quickly become friends, bonding over their love for music and staying true to themselves. The two begin collaborating as a duo, recording a reasonably successful album together as well as a few cover EPs each focusing on a single artist, with Coloratura singing, Starlight playing most of the instruments, and both of them playing piano together.

Starlight and Coloratura would both develop a crush on each other, with Starlight, who initially did not sing, being inspired to sing along with Coloratura, although her voice wasn’t nearly as good as Coloratura’s. Both of them still had their own solo careers outside their collaborations with Starlight enjoying reasonable success thanks to her association with Coloratura.

Sunset Shimmer became friends with both Starlight and Coloratura after returning to Equestria permanently and began her own musical career as frontmare and guitarist for her own rock band. The three would begin collaborating as a trio, recording a couple reasonably successful albums while also contributing to each other’s solo projects with Starlight joining Sunset’s band as a keyboardist and Sunset joining Coloratura’s touring band as a guitarist. Starlight began crushing on Sunset Shimmer almost as much as Coloratura. The three of them remained best friends for life.